


How to almost fall in love with a ghost

by Aconite



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-16 05:39:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3476516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aconite/pseuds/Aconite





	How to almost fall in love with a ghost

Isaac Lahey was like most other freshmen in college,

 

            He went to class (most of the time); he missed his family, his real family (Scott and Mrs. McCall). He drank a bit too much, especially during Rush Week, even though he had no desire whatsoever to join a fraternity. He had no fucking clue what his major was going to be and the whole “post-college plan” seemed like a distant dream. Isaac was lucky he didn’t have a roommate too, considering it had been weeks since he saw the floor and to be honest, he was pretty much living on ramen because the junk they served in the dining halls made him sick.

 

            Yes, he was an average college student …  if it wasn’t for one, pesky little problem.

 

            Isaac was almost certain that his dorm room was haunted.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s hard to say what exactly it was that started Isaac on this path, after all anything strange or vaguely “ghost-like” could easily be explained away. Chills up the back of his spine, vague dreams and misplaces papers. It could all be explained somehow, but he couldn’t… he couldn’t shake the unsettled feeling that crept into his bones.

 

            Sometimes at night he huddled in his cot, wide awake, unable to sleep and unable to shake the feeling that eyes were staring at him and that long, cold fingers were reaching out.  It takes a toll, dark marks stain his eyes and he falls asleep in class because it’s where he feels safe.

 

He mentions it vaguely on Skype with Scott, but in the midst of Scott lamenting the pains of a long distance relationship, Isaac realized that he probably had his own shit to deal with. He doesn’t even try with Mrs. McCall; he knows right away that she doesn’t need something else to worry about. Instead Isaac turns to the one person who just might be crazy enough to deal with him.

 

            The guy in the room next door (the one with the buzz cut and the red haired bombshell of a girlfriend): Stiles…. Something or other.

 

* * *

 

He knocks on the door hesitantly, shifting from foot to foot. Isaac’s just about to turn around and run back to his creepy haunted room, when the door opens.

 

            Stiles gazes at him for a few moments before speaking,

 

            …. “Hi?” Isaac can’t blame him for being confused, they never really talked before now, but Isaac’s overheard him in the halls and seen him carrying books about werewolves, so he’s the closest Isaac can get to calling the ghost busters.

 

            “Hey, can I come in? I need your help.” Isaac attempts his puppy dog eyes, but they seem to do nothing if Stiles obviously confused expression is any indicator.

            “…. Sure” Stiles opens the door further and gestures wildly. Isaac almost wants to turn tail and run, but the urgency in his core, the worry he’d been pushing down threatens to rise up and he stumbles inside.

 

            “So” Stiles closes the door, “What’s going on… dude?”

 

            “I think my room is haunted!” Isaac blurts out, he’s ready for Stiles to call him crazy, to throw him out. Instead Stiles just sits down at his desk and motions for him to continue…

 

            “Well, go on, why?”

 

            “Well, it’s like… it’s like someone’s watching me all the time and sometimes… sometimes I feel something cold reaching out to touch me.” Isaac sinks down onto the bed across from Stiles and drops his head into his hands. “I can’t fucking sleep man and my papers are always going missing and then I turn back around and there right in the spot I was looking at two seconds ago! One time I woke up and all the drawers in my room were opened and I know it wasn’t me and I just… I don’t know I thought maybe you could help me?” Isaac looks at Stiles them and he knows he must be a sight with his disheveled hair and raccoon eyes.

 

            “So umm, this stuff… it’s scaring you right?” Stiles is nodding understandably, and Isaac is wondering if he is figuring out when exactly to dial 911.

 

“No… yes. I mean it ‘s complicated you know? Like at night it’s scary definitely, but everything else is just… annoying?”  Isaac rubs his tired, bloodshot eyes at this, “It’s complicated, and I just… I just have this feeling that I have to do something” He did, he really did, he couldn’t explain it, but the worry, the unsettled feeling… it’s not for himself. Isaac can only sigh again, ”I know I must sound crazy-“

 

            The other boy interrupts him at this, “Well of course, being haunted by a ghost could make anyone crazy.” Isaac can hardly believe his ears; he runs a hand through his curls as he replies,

 

            “You mean you believe me?”

 

            “Of course man, everything you say is consistent with supernatural activity, this spirit or whatever probably has malicious intent towards you.” Stiles plays with the strings on his hoodie as he speaks, “listen, if this is anything like the movies, you’re going to need to expel it.”

 

            “O…kay, well how do I do that.” Isaac feels almost more lost than before, but he clings to the hope that this can somehow help him. Stiles only smiles at this and reaches behind himself, groping at a stack of papers on his desk.

 

            “It’s cool dude, I’ve got a pamphlet.”

 

* * *

            Isaac looks around, at the candles illuminating his prison-gray walls, the cheap curtains that are tightly drawn shut and the incense that he actually hoped people would mistake for weed. Standing at the edge of a pentagram and runes clumsily drawn in salt, he can only think that he has truly reached the edge of sanity… and that this was all going to be a nightmare to vacuum up.

           

            He flips through the pamphlet one more time, hesitantly thumbing at the few pages. Before throwing it down and carefully, stepping over the salt, walking over to the wall. He bangs on it, once, twice, three times.

 

            “JESUS CHRIST! WHAT? “ Stiles yells at him, voice only slightly muffled by the paper thin walls. Isaac glances back at the Halloween store that is his dorm room, before turning back towards the wall and calling out,

 

            “Are you sure you don’t want to help with…ummm … this?” He finishes kind of weakly, unable to accurately describe what he’s doing… or why he’s doing it, for that matter.

 

            “ABSOLUTELY FUCKING POSITIVE BRO!” Stiles continues shouting, despite the fact that Isaac can hear him just fine. “YOU JUST DO YOUR THING, I’M WITH YOU IN SPIRIT! I’VE HAD TO DEAL WITH ENOUGH WEIRD SHIT TO LAST A LIFETIME-” Stiles voices cuts off abruptly and Isaac presses his ear to the cold wall in time to hear some jumbled syllables that sound like “furkin wrmwomfs.”

 

            Faced with the knowledge that he is absolutely alone right now (not counting the invisible specter), Isaac can only tiptoe back to his original spot and pick up the pamphlet once again. He looks down at the chant he’s supposed to recite and clears his throat

 

               “Hear these—aghhsh” He feels absolutely ridiculous right now, but then a breeze stirs the curtains…. And he knows that it wasn’t the broken air conditioning, this time he decides to make a verbal plea. “Listen… Mr. Ghost dude, I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’m about to cast a spell to summon the dead. A spell that I got from a pamphlet that has a $5 dollars off your next Tarot card reading, stapled on it. I am such a fucking idiot.” Isaac pauses for a minute before continuing, cricking his neck “listen… if you could just like, send me a sign or something.”

 

           All of a sudden, one of the candles next to Isaac blows out. He gropes around in his pocket for the matchbook with a groan.

 

            “Okay, could you send me a more positive sign?”

 

            Radio. Fucking. Silence.

 

            “Guess not,” he mutters as he relights the stout, white candle. He grabs the pamphlet in his lap, this time rather resolutely and begins chanting, even as the little voice in his brain whispers to him;

 

Hear these words, hear my cry,

 

_(This is so stupid)_

 

Spirit from the other side.

 

_(What are you going to do if his works)_

 

Come to me, I summon thee,

 

_(You’re just going to be like, hey ghostie, wanna beer?)_

 

Cross now the great divide

 

_(Not that this is going to work)_

 

Beloved spirit,

 

_(Because it isn’t)_

 

We seek your guidance,

 

_(But seriously though)_

 

Commune with us

 

_(What are you gonna do if this works?)_

 

And move amongst us.

 

No sooner are the last words out of his mouth than there’s a bright, white flash flooding the room. It startles, Isaac, pushing him back, he braces himself with his elbows. His eyes are squeezed shut tight and when he finally manages to pry them open, the sunspots are dazzling.  He blinks a few times in order to clear his vision and-

            “Holy shit.” Is all Isaac can whisper?

 

            Because there is a boy sitting in the middle of his salt-pentagram, a blue-eyed, brown-haired, designer jean and t-shirt wearing Adonis of a boy,

 

            “Holy shit” Isaac murmurs again.

 

* * *

After a few minutes of shocked staring, the boy, ghost, _thing_ speaks,

 

            “Umm, Do you mind?” He, it, gestures to the salt with an air of entitlement that seems inherently too bourgeoisie for a university dorm room. It does the trick though; Isaac snaps out of his reverie and scuffs his feet through the lines of salt.

 

            The ghost sort of, glides, over to Isaacs bed and makes an attempt to sit down.  Isaac’s slightly startled by the fact that he doesn’t actually make contact, instead he hovers over the plain brown bedspread. Isaac practically chokes on air and tries to think of something to say.

 

            “Hi” _(All right good start),_ Isaac smiles a bit,  “you’re… dead.”

 

            _And goodbye good start_. Dear god, he feels like he’s about to—well, never mind. The ghost gives him a look filled with mockery,

 

            “Yeah… no shit Sherlock.” He looks around the room, “I have to say, you are definitely better than the last person in here, sure the rooms a little bland, but it sure beats Death metal 24/7.” At this point, he lays back on the bed, arms behind his head and still hovering just above the mattress.

 

            “Oh ah, thanks… I think” Isaac squints a bit, still trying to comprehend the situation. “I’m uh---“

 

            “Isaac Lahey, I know.”  The ghost of Abercrombie finishes for him, “I’m Jackson.”

 

            “No last name?” Isaac’s trying to sound somewhat collected, but Jackson still looks at him like he’s stupid

 

            “Of course I have a last name, numbskull.” He pauses then and some fleeting expression passes his face, “I just don’t remember it…” He trails off at this and that awkward lull that is so familiar at dinner parties descends on the two of them.

 

            “So the umm… the whole fingers, missing papers, haunting thing?” Isaac feels like this is a safe question and no doubt something that Jackson will remember. Right on cue, Jackson shrugs and replies,

           

            “I was bored” He smiles now, a real sunshine grin, and it takes a second for Isaac to remember how to function.

 

            “Dude!” Isaac exclaims once he regains control, it’s an emphatic, if somewhat delayed reaction. “Not. Cool.”

 

            “Dude!” Jackson parrots back sarcastically, “what do you want from me? You’re the first person who I’ve talked to since _this_ happened, ghosts can’t sleep and shuffling papers is the only way I can communicate with the world.”

 

            Isaac tries to wipe the offended look off his face, but it doesn’t work. Jackson can only give an exasperated sigh at the wounded puppy dog look,

           

            “I’m sorry okay, but you try being dead for this long and not screwing with people.” The apologetic look in Jackson’s pale blue eyes belies the annoyed scowl on his face.”

 

            “Well, how long have you been dead?” Isaac decides this is as close as he’s going to get to an actual apology.

 

            “I don’t know, old enough to go to college?”

 

            “You don’t know that either?” He spits out without thinking and the minute it’s out he wants to take it back, because Jackson goes stone still for a moment, before replying,

 

            “Listen you forget things after a while okay?” And there’s that look again, the shadow across the gh-Jackson’s face that makes Isaac think the smirk and the dimples are hiding something. “Everything, kind of blurs together after a while, pretty soon you don’t remember anything.” The other boy pulls himself up back into a sitting position and looks down, swatting absentmindedly at the pillows.

 

            His hands go right through.

 

            Isaac stares (he’s been doing that a lot lately) for a moment before walking over and sitting down on the edge of the bed. He’s careful to keep far away from Jackson; Isaac rests his hands awkwardly in his lap. They both look straight ahead, just staring over the mess of salt and wax and into the wall.

 

            All of a sudden a loud banging noise startles them both, almost simultaneously they jerk their heads over in the direction of the noise.

 

            “I DON’T HEAR ANY SCREAMING, IS IT SAFE TO ASSUME THAT THE SUPERNATURAL ENTITY IS NOT EVIL?”

 

            Jackson and Isaac stare at each other for a moment,

 

            Before bursting into laughter.

 

* * *

            You would think there would be something rather macabre about having a ghost for a roommate, but it’s actually sort of humorous… in a bleak way.

 

            Perhaps it helps that his ghost is handsome, college boy.

 

            Who is currently looking at him with an expression of disgust rarely found on the living, let alone the dead.

 

            “Okay, you need to clean up this room” He hovers delicately over the piles of dirty laundry.

 

            “You never complained before,” Isaac scoffs in return.

 

            “I did! You just couldn’t understand me then.”

 

            “Well I don’t mind the mess so…”

 

            “Come on, this isn’t fair dude.” Jackson whines “I can’t fucking touch anything, how am I supposed to clean?”

 

            “Excuses, excuses” Isaac chides back.

 

            But the next day the room is clean(er).

* * *

“Hey, hey Mrs. McCall, how’s it going?” Isaac says, while gesturing frantically at Jackson to _stop talking_.

 

            “No, no everything’s fine”

 

            “Yeah course everything is fine mom, just got a new roommate, turns out he’s dead.”

 

            “Yeah, no not hanging out with anyone special.”

 

            “What, dude I am offended.”

 

            “Okay, Shut up! No no, not you Ms. McCall, listen I’ll talk to you later… okay, bye” He hangs up his cell and turns to look at Jackson “Fuck you.”

 

            “I’m not even sorry, you have to admit that was funny.” Jackson is cackling.

 

            “Not funny.”

 

            “Super funny, say why do you call her Ms. McCall, is she your stepmom or something?” Jackson’s still got little bits of laughter hiding in the corners of his mouth.

 

            “No umm... She kind of took me in” He trails off at this unsure of how to finish.

 

            Jackson, for all his douchebaggery, seems to know not to press any further.

* * *

 

Isaac walks home faster from class one day, for some reason more eager to get back to his dorm. When he opens the door though, he stops dead in his tracks.

 

            Because there is Stiles, crouched on the bed with his laptop open to Gilmore Girls.

 

            And there is Jackson, huddled in the corner and looking like he is planning bloody murder.

 

            “I thought that he might get lonely” Stiles beams up at Isaac, while gesturing wildly to everywhere but where Jackson actually is, “I mean I can’t see him, but I think he likes it!”

 

            “Get him out of here.” Jackson whispers in a deadly tone, “get him out of here before I KILL HIM!”

* * *

 

            “How do you think I died?” Jackson asks him one day, while Isaac is sitting at his desk,

 

            “Well my first theory involves a grand piano, your Lamborghini and---“ He trails off as he realizes that Jackson isn’t joking. Instead he’s staring out the window, with this pensive look on his face.

 

            “Umm dude?”

 

            “I mean who was I? What was I like? Why… why did I die?” Jackson’s rambling now, words spilling out and Isaac isn’t sure how to make it stop.

            “I mean… I know what you’re like now and you’re kind of a dick.” The corner of Jackson’s mouth tweaks up at this, “I mean you nag me about my room and you’re constantly calling me names.”

 

            “Can you get to the good parts curly.”  Jackson only sounds slightly perturbed though.

 

            “You’re also one of the few friends I have in this school and I—“ He’s not quite sure what it is he wants to say,

 

            “You?” Jackson looking at him with those pale blue eyes and Isaac stutters for a few moments before finishing.

 

            “You’re the best roommate I ever had.”

 

            Jackson swallows awkwardly, before they both look away from each other.

 

            “So what was your theory again?”

 

            “Right, so you drove your Lamborghini into a grand piano and everything explodes, it’s all very 90’s acme.” They both laugh for a few moments before Jackson pauses with a strange look in his eyes,

 

            “I drove a Porsche though.”

 

            It takes a moment for what was just said to sink in, Jackson stays standing quietly and Isaac is still spinning in his desk chair. Then all of a sudden it hits them and they stare at each other, slack-jawed.

 

            “Did you just-“

 

            “I did-“

 

            And the next thing they’re both jumping and laughing and they’d hug if only it were possible. Because it’s so stupid, it’s so meaningless and foolish and yet it means so much. Isaac is so happy for Jackson, even if it represents a part of Jackson that he doesn’t recognize, a part that he can’t share.

 

            He’s happy because Jackson is completely, utterly happy.

* * *

 

            He tells Stiles right away, whether he’s looking for information or just trying to find someone else to share the joy with, he doesn’t know.

 

            “That’s great dude! You know what this means right?” Isaac’s expression drops into one of confusion at this statement.

 

            “No, should I?”

 

            “Dude, it means he’s going to pass on soon.”

 

            If the world had stopped moving at that second, Isaac did not think he would have been more shocked than he was at the sound of those words.

 

            “What?”

 

            “Yeah, once a spirit remembers their full name of their own volition, they move on. I mean, obviously it’s a long ride from the car to a name, but this has to be part of a pattern”

 

            Isaac doesn’t really know what to say at this, he wonders if Jackson knew, even if subconsciously, because whenever Isaac brought up doing anything to try and find out who he was, the ghost boys stops him. It’s a good thing, Jackson needed to move on, but they never talked about it at all.

 

            He realizes at this moment, that Stiles is still looking at him, waiting for a response with an inscrutable expression on his face. So Isaac follows the first urge that comes into his mind, he turns around and walks out the door.

* * *

that comes into his mind, he turns around and walks out the door.

 

 

            He comes home piss drunk, because what else are you supposed to do when you find out your…. Best friend… is going to leave you.

 

            “Dude what the fuck?” Jackson exclaims when Isaac stumbles in and flops down onto the bluish carpet.

 

            “If I asked you to do something for me, could you do it?”

 

            “I mean that depends, if you’re asking me to pick you up and tuck you in we’re going to have a problem.”

 

            “Could you not remember anymore.” Isaac raises his head weakly to glance at Jackson, who grows eerily silent at this request. He gently lowers himself so that he’s hovering next to Isaac.

 

            “Why would you ask me that?” Isaac’s drunk enough to tell the truth.

 

            “Because I think I’m in love with you—“

 

            “What?” Jackson whispers with no trace of the hubris that is usually there

 

            “Or at least I will be. You just, you just have to give me more time and I know I’ll fall in love with you and… and it doesn’t even matter if you don’t or you won’t love me back that’s okay, I’m fine with that because--”

 

            “I would.” Jackson whispers, “I don’t know how much more time it would take but I think I would fall in love with you. How could I not? You’re the only one who can see me, I’m already halfway there”

 

            Isaac feels like he’s about to cry and then something even worse (better) happens.

 

            “Look at me,” Jackson says, “I think this is what I needed to remember, because my name is Jackson-“

 

            “Wait no, don’t”

 

            “Whittemore” And there’s that white flash of light again and Isaac’s thrown back and,

 

            When he regains the courage to open his eyes, he’s alone.

* * *

The next day he goes to see Stiles and the first thing he wants to do is look up this Jackson Whittemore, but Isaac stops him.

 

            He doesn’t need to know about the Jackson Whittemore who lived, because he almost fell in love with the Jackson who was dead.

 

            Almost.

 


End file.
